Against Angell on a Single-Payer System - by Cate Fusco
In the second piece written by Marcia Angell, she argues for a single-payer health insurance system with the basic arguments that it would save the general public money and make insurance more available to everyone. I agree with her on most accounts except one. Unfortunately this country is founded on the ideas that there should be levels of everything so that a person is open to make themselves whatever they want. By levels I mean there is a difference in the type of school you can go to, the brand and quality of the clothes you can buy (Target vs. Gap vs. something more expensive etc and Ursinus vs. Montco). In the system we have now, health care is treated in levels just like mostly everything else that can be bought. If you make something of yourself in life then you will be able to afford more health coverage.
Even if you don't have the money to pay the extra bills (the ones the hospital charged you because the insurance won't cover everything) it's sad that I know this, but as long as a person pays at least 5 dollars a month on those bills, they will not have a credit problem, or have a lean on their house or anything -- and over time the bill is sent to the bill collectors who bug the person for a while until the bill is just written off. Now I'm not soliciting that idea, but clearly if the money was absolutely needed they would take more action into getting it from the patients.
My point is that if we move to a single-payer system the coverage for which everyone can receive is limited, and I would not be able to go to that specialist I needed because she has the best ocular surgical technique in the country . . . or maybe I would but then everyone would be paying for me to go there, and that's not fair to them to pay more than they need to. That's sort of the theory of private health clinics. Those who can afford to go there can, and those who can't get the basic coverage by the government. Maybe I'm completely wrong about the whole idea, but it sounds to me that by changing systems completely, we're eliminating what this country is about.
Even if you don't have the money to pay the extra bills (the ones the hospital charged you because the insurance won't cover everything) it's sad that I know this, but as long as a person pays at least 5 dollars a month on those bills, they will not have a credit problem, or have a lean on their house or anything -- and over time the bill is sent to the bill collectors who bug the person for a while until the bill is just written off. Now I'm not soliciting that idea, but clearly if the money was absolutely needed they would take more action into getting it from the patients.
My point is that if we move to a single-payer system the coverage for which everyone can receive is limited, and I would not be able to go to that specialist I needed because she has the best ocular surgical technique in the country . . . or maybe I would but then everyone would be paying for me to go there, and that's not fair to them to pay more than they need to. That's sort of the theory of private health clinics. Those who can afford to go there can, and those who can't get the basic coverage by the government. Maybe I'm completely wrong about the whole idea, but it sounds to me that by changing systems completely, we're eliminating what this country is about.
posted by Kelly Sorensen | 1:53 PM
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